There is hardly anybody good for everything, and there is scarcely anybody who is absolutely good for nothing.

Those whom you can make like themselves better will, I promise you, like you very well.

There is nothing that people bear more impatiently, or forgive less, than contempt: and an injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult.

Cultivate the habit of thinking ahead, and of anticipating the necessary and immediate consequences of all your actions.... Likewise in your pleasures, ask yourself what such and such an amusement leads to, as it is essential to have an objective in everything you do. Any pastime that contributes nothing to bodily strength or to mental alertness is a totally ridiculous, not to say, idiotic, pleasure.

As kings are begotten and born like other men, it is to be presumed that they are of the human species; and perhaps, had they thesame education, they might prove like other men. But, flattered from their cradles, their hearts are corrupted, and their heads are turned, so that they seem to be a species by themselves.... Flattery cannot be too strong for them; drunk with it from their infancy, like old drinkers, they require dreams.

If you will please people, you must please them in their own way; and as you cannot make them what they should be, you must take them as they are.

The rich are always advising the poor, but the poor seldom return the compliment.